Inferno too hot to try rescue

TYRES screeched and seconds later an enormous bang was heard by anyone in neighbouring blocks.

Chris Rees raced to the footpath, one of the first to see a fireball erupt on Golf Links Rd at Mountain Creek.

He ran towards the silver sedan that was wrapped around a tree on the eastern side of the road.

Flames crackled 20m into the sky.

“There's someone in the car. Let's try to get him out,” another man yelled to Mr Rees, also racing on to the road.

“Just be careful,” Mr Rees warned.

The inferno was too hot for anyone to get close.

“There was really nothing any-body could do except sort of stand back,” said Tony Jennings, who lives on the road.

“When you know there's absolutely nothing anybody can do, to see a car wrapped around that tree and those flames – it's just horrific.”

Leaking oil carried a string of flames downhill more than 200m to the roundabout that meets Karawatha Dr. As fire-fighters rushed to douse the blaze, helpless residents watched in despair.

Mr Rees, who had been watching football at his mate's home, said he had never seen a fire so vicious.

Headlights from a police car lit up shards of glass spread along Golf Links Rd, including rubble that his mate said was 50m away from the crumpled car.

The mate's 15-year-old son said he was shocked by the terrible scene.

“It was just shocking to see so much damage to a car. It was folded right around the whole tree,” the teenager said.

A woman who lives directly across the road from where the car crashed was woken when her house was shaken by the explosion.

“I saw an orange glow and looked out the window and saw the flames,” she said.

Racing outside, the mother-of-two could feel the heat of the inferno from her front door.

Residents on the busy Mountain Creek road, which connected Mooloolaba Rd to Karawatha Dr at the bottom of Buderim, said the accident was inevitable based on the number of “hoons” who sped up and down the hill.

“We had a similar crash down the bottom of the street a few days ago and luckily nobody was injured,” Mr Jennings said.